Introducing AWOL Headliners
READ THE FLIGHT FACILITIES HEADLINER HERE
Welcome to AWOL Headliners, our exclusive long-form pieces that encourage you to do what all good travel should – look closer and dig deeper. Through in-depth journalism and amazing imagery we’ll be bringing you stories of people, places and things that inspire and captivate, bringing unexplored territory into focus.
Our first piece is the untold story of Flight Facilities, the wildly successful Australian dance act who helped set AWOL in motion with both our launch party and an incredible jetsetting competition that saw two lucky winners and their plus ones fly to New York City to watch their sold-out show.
It followed the release of their long-awaited debut album Down To Earth, featuring ‘Sunshine’ and their breakthrough single ‘Crave You’; sold-out theatre shows across the globe; and a memorable set at Coachella earlier this year. And to think – all of this might not have bloomed were it not for a stunning town on the NSW Sapphire Coast called Merimbula.
No, Jimmy and Hugo from Flight Facilities didn’t meet there, and no, they didn’t produce their album there. The real story stretches much further back, to a small airline owned by Hugo’s grandfather Laurie Gruzman. To find out a little more about this fascinating story we sent our reporter Katie Cunningham and photographer Daniel Boud to Merimbula to spend an afternoon with Hugo and Jimmy. They had lunch with the pair, visited the Merimbula Airport (where the original Flight Facilities was born) and met a cast of local characters that helped piece Laurie Gruzman’s story together.
READ THE FLIGHT FACILITIES HEADLINER HERE
